ECommerce | Comstar's Blog - Website Tips & Tricks

Web Genius Summit – volume 1

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Tips, Website Tools, Website Traffic No Responses »

May 282010

The Web Genius Summit has just concluded the first set of 12 interviews. You can read about the first six sessions in the previous post at Web Genius Summit Update.

This current post will give a recap of the final six interviews of volume 1…

The second half of the series kicked off with Erik Stafford. Erik is an internationally recognized expert in internet marketing and building easy website sales systems. He took us back to some of the internet marketing basics to help you build a stronger online presence for your business. His program Faster Webmaster is still available.

Kyle Battis showed us the power of teleseminars to teach others, create a following, and add additional revenue to your bottom line. Much of the Web Genius Summit teleseminar series was based on the things that Kyle told us about. You can learn about teleseminars through the My First Teleseminar series.

Then we had Susan Hill. Susan learned to create opportunity in a small niche by employing experts at various tasks using Elance. You can use Susan’s experience and advice to propel your business forward too. She has a book called Elance Made Easy available for download now.

Ben Mack, marketing strategist extraordinaire, taught us the benefits of thinking and planning ahead, not just one step but two. How do you take your customer or your business from where it is at right now and move it to where it will be? Thinking two products ahead, two sales ahead, two promotions ahead helps you capture more money in a systematic way. This call closed out with an invitation for ecommerce owners to start planning Cyber-Monday with Christmas in July.

David Deutsch is an A-level copywriter and one of the top direct response marketing consultants in the U.S. He told us several million dollar marketing secrets and how you can Think Inside the Box! to generate profitable new ideas for your business. Did you get in on million dollar secret #3? If not, click the link at David’s name to see how you can grab his ideas system and get the out-of-print book with 20 different secrets as a bonus.

The final episode of Web Genius Summit volume 1 was carried by Brian McLeod. Brian is a direct-response copywriter, sales trainer, and creative marketing consultant who helped to bring all the pieces of the Web Genius Summit together, showing how you can integrate your offline marketing and your online marketing efforts for maximum impact! Not only that, but he also introduced masterminding as a way to add a new profit stream to your business.

While you’ve already missed these interviews you can register now to be invited to participate at no charge in volume 2 starting later this year. In the meantime, upon registration, you’ll have the option to purchase volume 1 so you can get caught up on all these great lessons. Details at www.webgeniussummit.com.

Web Genius Summit Update

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Tips, Website Tools, Website Traffic No Responses »

Apr 232010

Now that we’re half way through the first set of guest experts on the Web Genius Summit, I would like to take a few minutes to summarize what you may have missed.

In case you’re not familiar with the Web Genius Summit, let me first give you a brief description… I am interviewing business and internet geniuses for 60 minutes each. By listening in you get to discover strategies that will help your business too.

Some of the geniuses on the calls are authors, some are coaches, others are business people who have unlocked the key to internet success in their own business. All are experts sharing their experience…

Mark Joyner was our Web Genius headliner. He is a #1 best-selling author of over a dozen books. He is recognized as a pioneer of e-commerce and is responsible for inventing and popularizing technologies we take for granted such as remotely-hosted ad tracking and ebooks. While we discussed a number of great topics for business, he presented one factor that would allow your business to take off like a precision missile.

Lewis Howes and Sean Malarkey joined us to discuss social media. As LinkedIn and Twitter experts they helped us to define how to dominate social media in your niche without wasting all your time.

Brad Sugars came on board as a business coach to discuss strategies to grow your business now. Brad is best known as the founder and CEO of ActionCOACH – a business and executive coaching firm that presently operates in 26 countries spanning six continents. Brad is currently on a nationwide tour. See if he’s visiting your area. Register for free with ticket code SMIL010 at www.businessisboomingtour.com!

Ann Convery taught us how to reach the Primitive-Brain — the one that triggers every buying decision your visitors make, and drives results on your website and in social media. Ann has a class starting in May called “You’re so Brilliant! Why Don’t They Buy?“ It’s likely that her class would make an immediate and perceptible difference in your business. Get registered now!

Ann also wins our Guest Expert of Distinction Award based on the extreme density of great information and from excessive positive feedback from our listeners!

Howie Jacobson, the author of AdWords For Dummies, showed us how to get better results for less money using Google Adwords. Yes, you need to understand how to write your ads so that they attract buyers and repel everyone else!

Pat Marcello is an author who wanted to sell more books. In the process she turned to internet marketing and became an expert in blogging and search engine optimization. Pat talked about what’s important in SEO and how to use blogs to drive traffic, creating trusting, eager buyers.

We also had the pleasure of a bonus call with Audrey Kerwood. Audrey is an ecommerce expert who showed us the 8 factors that every high-converting ecommerce site must have. Watch for an announcement about Audrey’s ecommerce 3-day training seminar coming in July. I’m going to be speaking at this event!

While you’ve already missed these interviews you can still get in on new ones that follow. Registration to listen in on the calls is FREE! Get on the guest list now and you’ll be invited to participate in our future calls. Plus the existing calls are being put into a library of audios and transcripts. You can pick these up at a great price.

Isn’t it time you learn what you need to move your business to the next level?

Powerful Newsletter Subjects

Product Recommendations, Website Traffic No Responses »

Mar 232010

Yesterday I left off talking about subject lines for your newsletter mailings.

To demonstrate the importance of a good subject line, I’ll use a different form of marketing to illustrate.

Think of movie posters, specifically the taglines. Now even more specifically the poster for the movie Alien. I’ll describe it in case you don’t know what it looks like…

It’s almost entirely black with a greenish egg in the center, glowing faintly. The title “Alien” is spelled out above it. Without any form of tagline the poster means whatever comes to your mind. If you were afraid of aliens it would seem ominous. But if you had recently seen ET your perspective might be completely different.

It’s the tagline that explains the image. It says, “In space no one can hear you scream”. Yikes. That makes it pretty clear it’s a horror movie. If you’re a horror fan you’d want to see it. If you’re not a horror fan you’re going to stay far away!

So how does this tie in with newsletters? Consider that your customers probably subscribe to more than just your newsletter and they’re probably not waiting in anticipation for your next mailing. Most likely they didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “Boy I hope that latest newsletter from XYZ Company arrives in my inbox today!”

If your subject is bland it doesn’t matter how well written the content is, or how amazing the images of your products look, because most of your customers will delete it without opening it. With the pervasiveness of sales messages all around, people tune them out. So, if your subject says “Big Sale at My Store” you’re not going to get a great open rate.

Okay, what do you write instead?

Let’s go back to the movie poster example. The image and title are basically neutral. If the tagline had been the equivalent of “Big Sale at My Store” it would read “Humans Meet Alien.” That is not the least bit exciting. It’s not very descriptive and creates no desire for anyone to see that movie. It’s true though, a statement that describes the movie in a completely general sense, but it conveys nothing about the content. How is anyone going to make a decision based on a statement of nothingness?

Of course over communicating in a subject can be just as bad. Let’s use another example from the movie. What if the tagline read, “Sent to a distant planet for recon, seven deep space miners encounter a new species of destructive alien that rampages through their ship and kills all but one of them before being blown out of an airlock”?

Who’s going to read all that? They’d probably have to create an extra large movie poster just to keep the font large enough! Bringing that back to your subject line, this would be comparable to, “Three Day Buy One Get One Free Sale On Modern Art Tapestries Handmade and Imported from Belgium For Stunning Home Decor.”

That’s just way too long, and it looks like its going to be spam. The right subject message is a bite-size hook, not some long exposition that will be truncated by your customers email client.

Make your message clear and concise. If you can include a call to action that’s a plus. Based on the tapestry store example from yesterday, here are some possible subjects…

“Three Day Buy One Get One Tapestry Sale”
“Get a Rod with Your Tapestry Purchase”
“All Tapestries 20% Off This Friday”

These would all work fine. Don’t use all caps. No one wants to see that. Avoid extra punctuation. And don’t use more than one exclamation point if you must use any at all!!! (oops)

Now that you’ve gotten your customer interested with your subject, they open the email to find the exciting offer you’ve prepared for them. If they like what you say, they click through to your site.

Now it’s the job of your website to take the sales process to the next step and, ultimately, go for the order.

If you happen to be reading this between March 23 and March 29, you’re in luck! You can join me on a live interview with Audrey Kerwood, founder of A2Armory, co-author of the 2002 classic Yahoo! Store Profits, and owner/operator of four profitable online stores. You’ll get some great tips to move your store forward.

I host a series of interviews at Web Genius Summit. I will interview Audrey on March 29. This is a bonus call so it’s open to anyone who registers in advance. To get on the call register here. There is no charge for any of these calls.

Promoting Your Ecommerce Store

Product Recommendations, Website Traffic No Responses »

Mar 222010

Have you put together a plan for promoting your ecommerce store?

Whether you run a big business, small business, or you hold down the fort at your home office, you’ve got to have some kind of media plan which includes an email newsletter. And that newsletter must go out regularly.

Many ecommerce store owners fail to send out newsletters on a regular basis, in part because they do not know how to offer their products.

Where to begin? How about quarterly? Or at certain holidays? Planning much more frequent regular mailings will be beneficial, but you’ve got to start somewhere. So pick a schedule that works for now and build on it.

But who are you going to send your newsletters to? You have to start with a mailing list. If your ecommerce store software has an opt-in mailing list program built in, go ahead and use that. If not, you’ll need a third party program or service.

(I often recommend Aweber as an autoresponder service. If you click this link you can get started for just $1.)

OK, once you’ve got the program or service in place, you’ll need to add an opt-in box to your website. Part of this process is the creation of a compelling offer. Note that “sign up for our newsletter” or “sign up for our specials” might have some appeal, but most likely you’ll have to do better than that.

People protect their email addresses these days so you’ll have to offer your visitor a nice incentive to give you their email address. One idea that often works is to offer a percentage discount coupon that is sent to the customer immediately.

Your goal is to make whatever you’re offering as easy and fast for the customer as possible. Don’t make them have to think or wait for something – you’ll lose both ways.

Okay, you’ve got your offer alongside the opt-in box. Sign ups are starting to pour in. Now what? Time to start sending out the newsletters that will drive your business.

Holidays are pretty easy – New Years Sale, Mothers Day Sale, Fourth of July Sale, you get the idea. But what about all those other days of the year? What do you say then? How can easily justify sending out these emails? It’s really easy. Just give them something for reading!

Here are some ideas that can work for you regardless of what you’re selling in your store:

Offer another discount coupon
This can be for specific products or a storewide discount. If you’re concerned about losing money on lower profit items, then set a threshold price for storewide sales, e.g. 10% off orders over $50.
Buy One Get One Free or Buy One Get One ½ Off or Buy One Get ABC Free
An example of the latter could be “buy any tapestry over $200 and get a free hanging rod.” This idea comes from Audrey Kerwood who says, “The rods cost me about $11 apiece and I charge $22 in the store so this promotion is a great way to get my customers to buy the next tapestry size up so they save the $22. It works very well for anything that can be accessorized; it’s one of my favorite promotions.”
Featured Product of The Week (Month, Day, Hour)
Offers with a time limit capture a lot of interest. When doing a featured product mailing try to describe the item in great detail and provide more than one picture if possible. If you’re featuring the product, really feature it! Talk it up big. List all the virtues of the product and try to get the customer to feel what it would be like to own. Keep in mind that if you do a single product offer you’ll have to be much more specific on the benefits. But the nice thing about this type of offer is that it’s always unique.

Now that you’ve thought about the content of your newsletter, let’s talk about subject lines. You can have the best offer ever, but if your subscribers never open and read the email, it’s as good as useless.

Subject lines are truly just as important as the content and design. Heck, the subject line might even be more important. Your ecommerce store door is closed until the email is opened.

Web Genius Summit

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion, Website Traffic No Responses »

Feb 152010

As an website development and internet marketing firm we often get questions like:

“how do I get more people to purchase on my website?”
“should we be using Twitter?”
“is search engine optimization really a good thing or just a waste of money?”
“how can we show up on the first page of Google?”
“what good is blog anyway?”

Instead of taking the time to answer all of these individually, I decided that it’s time to get some experts together. Let’s combine the knowledge of a bunch of Business and Web geniuses and give access to business owners and entrepreneurs everywhere.

We’re launching the Web Genius Summit with a great list of experts who can drill down to specifics and answer all your questions on their topic.

Registration for this teleseminar and webcast series is FREE! So get on the guest list now and take your business up a notch or two.

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part Three

Website Conversion, Website Tips No Responses »

Jan 052010

Just this past week I went to a website that is well-known in its niche industry, comes up #1 on Google search engine results page, and offers fantastic items for sale, with a customized eCommerce approach that seems designed circa 1955. OK, you caught me… no internet in 1955, so it must have been near the end of the last Century. But the point is: it was the last Century!

I was able to shop by category, with all of the products visible as I scrolled down the page… and scrolled down the page… and scrolled… well, you get the picture! I wanted to click on the product image and see a larger view, but that apparently was a frivilous desire, according to their web designer. I wanted to click on a button to add it to my shopping cart, but the designer must have thought that was just too easy. Instead I scrolled down to the bottom of the page and clicked on the subtle link to make my purchase.

By now, I’m thinking, “Do I want this stuff?” and “Can they make this more difficult?” Right about then the order form came up on my screen and the answer was obvious, “Yes and yes.” The order form required me to type in each product’s inventory number, description, and price. I had to go back and forth from each of the 3 category pages where I found the items to copy the product information. So far my experience as a customer rivalled standing in line at the DMV, but just like my driver’s license, I had to have it!

As I typed in my credit card number, I knew it was secure because the little padlock icon was visible in my browser, so I knew no hacker could get my personal info. Now I only had to worry about the internal security of the company whose website offered me such a unique shopping experience… night cleaning crews, disgruntled employees, etc. The possibility that they might be outright thieves crossed my mind.

It’s hard to believe that there are websites out there that offer this type of shopping experience, but this really happened to me last week. I don’t know if this story will have a happy ending and I won’t really know even after I receive my items. All I know is that my credit card info is on file at some company in some other state, either in electronic form or even on paper, in what I hope is a secure environment. It’s OK; I’ve got faith.

As we develop eCommerce websites for our clients we recommend they take advantage of a payment gateway, such as PayPal or Authorize.net, to process online transactions, putting the collection and storage of sensitive credit card info on their big shoulders and ensuring customers’ data is safe behind the layers of security they provide.

Of course, there is more to the shopping experience than simple security, but that’s what it adds up to… trust. An online merchant must rely on the shopping experience their website provides to close the sale, and online shoppers need to trust where they spend their money. When those two things come together you have made a sale.

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part Two

Shameless Self Promotion, Website Conversion No Responses »

Dec 292009

As eCommerce and online sales revenues have grown over the past 15 years, so have the tools to develop, stock, and maintain an online store. Where once all online stores were developed as custom sites that had to be maintained by your web designer, today the most successful stores start with a full-featured eCommerce engine that is then customized by your web developer and managed by anyone on your staff familiar with Microsoft Windows applications.

At one time, if you had a web design firm develop your online store you had difficulty moving your website to another host, making your website a virtual prisoner to them. We have found that due to bad experiences with other vendors, those who are coming to Comstar bring this up as a major concern. (We, of course, do not use a proprietary eCommerce approach, so that our clients could take their website to any Microsoft compliant hosting provider.)

Today there are so many eCommerce engines that they cannot be counted. One of the challenges we face as web developers is choosing the right one for our clients’ needs. We do this by conducting workshops with our clients to find out about their business model and how it aligns with their vision of their online store. Then we match the solution to their vision.

While specific features can vary, all eCommerce engines we put into play have much the same basic functionality, utilizing best practices to build assets for our clients. They all include a familiar shopping cart experience, large and small photos, descriptions, an ability to pay through a payment gateway, etc.

The solutions we use most have additional features that can be turned on as needed, such as a Featured Product area, a Top Seller area, or cross-selling of products. Coupons, discounts, and special pricing for designated customers are often utilized, valuable features, as well. Emailing customers, supporting Affiliate sellers, and contacting vendors can be especially important. Inventory control, order fulfillment, and shipping are also a big part of any eCommerce solution that can benefit from professional advice.

That’s one thing about my job at Comstar, I see lots of ideas for online businesses. Some you wonder about and some you just know will be big money-makers. But you know none will succeed without an ability to generate sales online, 24/7.

As you contemplate selling online or improving your online sales in the coming year your online store will only be an asset if it is both useful and gets used by buyers looking for what you offer.

Check back for more info on how to build a real asset of an online store in Part Three!

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part One

Website Conversion No Responses »

Dec 182009

It was only about 15 years ago that most of us were wondering how anyone could make money with this new internet thing. The slow speed of dial-up access kept a regulator on the numbers of web users and what could be done online. But there were many who tried and some who were successful, surviving the “dot.com” bust of the late 90’s. These hearty souls were perfecting the art of selling online and when technology caught up in the form of high-speed access and more powerful personal computers, they were poised to reap what they had sown.

eCommerce had been named and was out of its infancy by the first few years of the new millennium. Amazon.com, Ebay, and its subsidiary PayPal, made the online credit card transaction commonplace. Most websites that offered products for sale were custom built and were either very sophisticated, if operated by a major brick-and-mortar retailer, or very simple, if operated by a small business. eCommerce was something many businesses aspired to, but which some could never successfully master.

Then along came the boys at Google (and I do mean boys) who revolutionized how buyers and sellers connected… by means of an efficient way to search for what you wanted coupled with a way to display paid ads to you based on your own interests. And guess what? They made lots of money on the web in ways no one thought of in 1995!

Even as every year online sales continue to rise, there are those who project the slowing down of that growth. In mid-2007 the so-called experts were projecting that the year’s annual online revenue would be $116 Billion (that’s 5% of total retail sales folks) and was about to peak, so that the next few years would see a down-turn in that revenue.

Since then we have seen it rise to 6% of overall retail sales in 2008 (a growth rate of 13%) and there are predictions of 7%, or $156 Billion this year. With the interest we have had in the past six months to a year at Comstar in eCommerce website development, the trend is probably not going to change soon.

With such growth you are probably thinking “I have to get in on this eCommerce thing!” You’re probably right.

Is Your Website Ready for eCommerce?

Website Tools No Responses »

Mar 302009

Internet users are willing and ready to purchase online. According to The Nielsen Company, “More than 85% of the world’s Internet users surveyed have purchased something online.”

Is your company ready to take this step in meeting the needs of potential customers?

eCommerce solutions can be a real benefit to companies. Here are a few benefits:

Real Savings for you - an online store acts as an extension of your sales force and costs the fraction of hiring a new sales person. The store will work for you 24/7 and you do not have to take time & money to train it!

Return on Investment - you can easily track conversion rates and measure sales made online against the cost of the investment.

Expand your markets geographically – your sales opportunities will expand by having a customized store. You will be able to make sales across time zones!

Additional features available – a well done eCommerce solution will include benefits such as: inventory & sales logs, unlimited product placement, customized shipping calculations, order tracking, automatic email sending, and more!

For more information, check out our eCommerce page.

Web Genius Summit Update

Powerful Newsletter Subjects

Promoting Your Ecommerce Store

Web Genius Summit

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part Three

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part Two

The Evolution of Online Stores, Part One

Is Your Website Ready for eCommerce?

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